A lot of people who book individual therapy often do so due to external stresses, such as those found in their work and personal lives, and each case often needs an understanding, tailored approach.
However, in recent years, a common discussion point, particularly amongst businesses wanting to increase productivity, is the development of resilience as a skill.
Resilience in its broadest definition is the ability to bounce back from hardships, setbacks, pressures and personal disasters. Typically, it reflects people who can keep calm in the face of a crisis and face these problems head-on.
However, as has been the case with positive mental attitudes, the concept of resilience has been misinterpreted by many advocates and led to the emergence of resilience resentment or a negative bitter reaction to instructions to “just be strong” in the face of a crisis.
It has become a significant problem because true resilience has nothing to do with sucking it up, gritting your teeth and getting on with it, much like how true positivity is not about burying and demonising negative terms, and resilience resentment can get in the way of genuine help.
For therapists trying to help battle misconceptions and people looking to build a true, healthy resilience and a better relationship with themselves, here are some of the misconceptions to navigate through and discuss.
Resilience Is Not Tubthumping
For people who have only heard the chorus, Tubthumping by Chumbawamba is a song all about resilience; you get knocked down but you get back up again and you’ll never be kept down.
The song of course is deeply, bitterly ironic, but also highlights that getting back up is not just a matter of masking how we feel and what worries us. Even in the song, the implication of drinking heavily and relying on nostalgic songs from better days is that none of this is healthy resilience.
True resilience is about understanding and accepting the emotions that we feel in high-pressure or emotionally charged situations and working on ways to process them healthily.
Resilience Is Neither A Skill Nor A Characteristic
There is a common misconception that some people are born with resilience and others are not, as if it is a mere facet of their character. However, resilience is something built up over time and through both positive and negative experiences.
How you react to a particular situation the first time is not how you would react to it again, as you have built up the experience and ability to adapt, manage your emotions, show empathy to others and self-care to yourself during times when there are no easy or painless answers.
Resilience Is All About Community
A lot of work-related resilience workshops fail because they rely on an inherently individualistic mindset, but as with so many aspects of psychology and mental health, community is where resilience is built up, it is where security is built up and it is where mental safety is built up.
If we know we are not alone and we can discuss how we feel without fear of being judged or our feelings invalidated, but instead they can be explored together.